ANAHEIM : Heart Patient Knows Where to Draw Line

It wasn’t long after Jim Ruffino took early retirement at 55 that he learned firsthand about the difficulties that often come with growing old.

Within five years, Ruffino had suffered a heart attack and required triple-bypass surgery. While in the hospital recovering, he realized how much a healthy laugh combined with his lifelong habit of drawing cartoons helped him get through the tough times.

Since being released earlier this year, the Anaheim man has been taking his unusual cartoon-drawing “treatment” to senior citizens around Orange County, hoping that humor can help others ease the aches and pains of aging.

“People need to laugh,” said Ruffino, now 60, in his deep but pleasantly enthusiastic voice. “There’s no better therapy than good humor.”

With that mantra in mind, Ruffino attempts to brighten the day of even the most stone-faced audience.

He comes to retirement homes and senior centers equipped with a large pad of paper, some colorful markers and an assortment of mild jokes and rye observations. “I have the gift for gab,” he said.

After introducing himself, Ruffino proceeds to pick a member of the audience to draw a line--any kind of line--onto the pad.

“I usually pick the biggest sourpuss in the room. They are the ones who walk in with their smiles turned upside down,” he said. “This gives them a sense of personal involvement.”

From that one line, Ruffino draws an elaborate picture, usually of a cartoon character. Then he gives the picture to the person who penned the original line.

“I tell them I’ll give it to them for a price. They have to hug me. . . . Let me tell you, they hold that cartoon for the rest of the show like it was a Rembrandt,” he said. “That puts me on Cloud 49.”

Ruffino said the show helps seniors by giving them something to concentrate on and laugh at.

Sometimes it’s the audience that has the last laugh, like the time a man drew his line in the shape of a “W.” The mark strongly resembled two breasts. “I told the guys that I wasn’t going to bite on that one,” he said.

The shows give Ruffino a chance to help others despite his own heart problems. “I may not be able to work in a dollar-productive way, but I can still serve a purpose,” he said. “I get a kind of love and self-esteem that is just indescribable.”